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Wednesday, February 22, 2012

More surprising stories

Once again, I'm going to talk about twist endings that worked. Once again, there'll be spoilers, so I'll add some space.

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The Steel Throne -- Technically, I guessed this one before I reached the end. However, the twist only occurred to me in the last few paragraphs, which actually made this story better. If I hadn't guessed it, I might have considered this a bait-and-switch story, which in a sense, it was. A dilemma is presented, but a solution is apparent, and the entire story seems to be moving toward that solution, although an internal debate occurs about whether the solution is right (not whether it will work, but whether it is morally correct). Then, bam!, another solution comes out of nowhere. Except that it wasn't out of nowhere. The pieces were there from the beginning, it just didn't occur to me, or probably most other readers, until it actually happened, since it wasn't the solution the story seemed to be heading toward. Sometimes something like this works, sometimes it doesn't. This time it worked.

Newfangled -- This one has the advantage of being long and complex (two of my suggestions for making the twist more surprising). This allowed it to keep me guessing all through the story, and not to see the resolution until it was already done. In a way, it's not really a twist ending, so much as a satisfying, if unexpected, resolution. Overall, it's definitely worth reading.